


after the wolf do wild men follow

by droneheads



Category: BNA: Brand New Animal (Anime), Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Drift Compatibility, Gen, Graphic Violence, Mental Health Issues, The Drift (Pacific Rim), but like. for 2 seconds, i haven't posted anything on ao3 in so long i don't fucking remember how to tag anything, i woke up at 2 am and blacked out and when i woke up this was in my google docs, obligatory pacific rim au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-14
Updated: 2020-05-14
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:27:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24185101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/droneheads/pseuds/droneheads
Summary: Shirou Oogami is seventeen when Trespasser rises out of the San Francisco Bay and splinters a squadron of fighter jets to pieces with a flick of its tail.(or, the obligatory Pacific Rim AU).
Relationships: Kagemori Michiru & Ogami Shirou
Comments: 4
Kudos: 89





	after the wolf do wild men follow

**Author's Note:**

> like 3 people are going to get this but that's the price of writing anything at 2 am 
> 
> Title from Henry Adams Bellows' translation of the Poetic Edda.

Shirou Oogami is seventeen when he sees the Kaiju for the first time. 

He’s huddled around the staticky television screen with half a dozen other kids, watches one of them reach a sticky hand to expertly jiggle the antennae, and as the picture greys and fritzes and clears they’re just in time to watch Trespasser cleave a monstrous arm through the Golden Gate Bridge like it’s nothing but air. 

They hear three days later that it took three nuclear missiles to take it down and on the news they show cleanup crews pale-faced and red-eyed, covered in noxious blue blood and Shirou presses his nails into his palms so hard that later he’ll find dried crescents of red underneath them. 

The governments are quick to bring on scientists from MIT and Harvard and other colleges besides, harried-looking people who reassure that no, this was a one-time freak event, surely this won’t happen again, there’s no scientific way. 

The world goes back to normal, for a while, and Shirou has almost stopped imagining twisted monsters a hundred feet tall emerging from the bay when the next attack happens, and the next.

It’s a week after Kaiceph hits Mexico that Shirou climbs over the sleeping forms of three other boys and jumps out the window and hits the ground running, fake ID cutting grooves into his palm. 

He takes the only rickety bus out of town to the nearest recruitment office, a dusty box of a place where a tired-looking woman barely glances at his ID before giving him a sheaf of forms to fill out and an equally tired-looking man pokes and prods him and makes him jog in circles for five minutes before dropping a dark-blue uniform into his arms. 

“Next bus to Tokyo at 5 AM,” he mutters, eyes already sliding off Shirou, half-forgetting him already. 

“Try to get some sleep.” 

Shirou isn’t a natural, but he is angry, and he is wanting, and a month after he arrives at the Academy he’s already one of the best in his class and his assessment notes drench pages with how vicious he is. 

Barely a year after he first arrived at the Academy, his roommate shakes him awake with a scowl and the heavily-Russian-accented message that he’s being transferred to Tokyo Shatterdome. 

Shirou sits in the blue light of early morning on yet another rickety bus and wonders what his JAEGAR will look like. 

His JAEGAR is a big, bulky Mark-2 analog, _Spirit Wolf,_ and the first time Shirou steps into the CONN-pod he feels like he could sing. 

They’re off the coast of Anchorage when it happens. 

The Kaiju newly dubbed Knifehead has just emerged, newborn, from the Breach, and as Shirou watches it shake the silt of the depths out of its eyes, rise to its full height one hundred, two hundred, three hundred feet tall, he almost remembers a lifetime ago staring out a fly-specked window. 

It’s supposed to be about as routine as JAEGAR piloting can get, and Shirou’s almost laughing as Knifehead goes down beneath the roiling waves, he’s turning his head to grin at his Drift partner when suddenly the front of _Spirit Wolf_ is ripped open and there’s nothing but air. 

(In his waking nightmares years after Shirou will swear that Knifehead grinned at him in that moment, sardonic and cruel and all too human). 

His Drift partner- Kuro- is yelling something over the howling winds and the primal scream of Knifehead’s roar and Shirou strains to catch it and then the other man is ripped from the CONN-pod and he feels nothing but a red-black _pain._

(In his waking nightmares Shirou will swear that he can feel the exact moment that Knifehead’s teeth pierced Kuro’s gut). 

He hears the crackly static of someone-or-other in his ears, screaming, spinning- he rips the headset off himself- 

He’s falling, his head pounding and reeling almost rhythmically, red-and-black in tandem, klaxon sirens blaring into his ears, he’s falling, falling, falling, and as the waves swallow him whole Shirou opens his mouth and tries to tell the difference between the salt and the blood. 

  
  


He’s alive, of course, with nothing but a few faint white scars to show for it. PPDC officials parade past his bed for a good week, wish him impartial condolences and barely-veiled pleads to not leave the Programme. 

He does anyway, climbs out another window in another dead-of-night, takes a rickety bus towards the nearest Wall building crew, loses himself in bloodied knuckles and rebar and bad rations, and he’s almost about to start living again when that helicopter lands. 

“You need to come back,” the Marshal says, and Shirou tilts his head, notices the new wrinkles around her eyes and the new tiredness around her frame. 

Shirou snarls and snaps at her at first, deflects with excuses and his raw, roiling anger, and she just looks at him with too much patience and too little time and tells him about Hong Kong, tells him about their numbers and if the black pit that’s opened in his stomach shows on his face she hides it well. 

He agrees, in the end, stalks off towards the helicopter with her trailing behind, and as they lift off into the sky Shirou catches himself looking out into the grey waters of the bay. 

  
  


Shirou almost laughs at the kids that they try to pair him with- looks at their thin wrists and bare ankles and pale faces and almost laughs. 

“Times change, Oogami,” she mutters at him as they stand in the training hall. 

Shirou actually laughs at that one, forcing out a twisted little chuckle that he sees at least one of the kids actively flinch at. 

  
  


The research team is smaller than he remembers, downsized from buildings and departments and labs to the Marshal doing overtime as the lone mathematician and a boy he doesn’t recognize as the lone biologist. 

The Marshal introduces the boy as Alan Sylvasta, and as he extends a hand to shake Shirou cocks his head, remembers half-caught television segments and blue eyes and blond hair exponentially more disheveled. 

“You’re the Kaiju fanboy,” he says, and Sylvasta balks just the barest bit, recovers and smiles and deflects but as he prattles on Shirou’s already decided to dislike him. 

(Doubly so, when one of his sleeves slip and he sees the unmistakable blackwork silhouette of Knifehead curling around his wrist). 

“You have to choose,” the Marshal says and it’s been two weeks since he’s arrived in Hong Kong and Shirou’s pretty sure everyone in the med-bay hates him by now. 

Shirou sighs, raises an arm and points. 

  
  


Michiru is young but she is also wounded and wanting and the first time they spar Shirou feels her rage like a howl. 

She’s got him pinned down on the practice mat and her eyes are almost blown-to-blackness with rage and sorrow in kind and Shirou hooks a leg underneath her and flips her and when she realizes what’s happening she _snarls,_ like a wolf or a blade, and then he is looking down at her and they breathe and breathe and breathe. 

The first time they Drift Michiru makes the rookie mistake, chases the rabbit and drags Shirou down along with her, and in turn he’s reeling again, tasting the salt or the blood or the guilt, and he watches, like some sort of twisted double feature, Michiru being chased through the streets of Tokyo amalgamating into the specific snap of Kuro’s ribs as Knifehead tears through _Spirit Wolf_ like it’s nothing but air. 

(Someone is screaming and Shirou opens his mouth to see if he can tell the difference). 

  
  


They lose another JAEGAR, her pilots entombed inside, and later during their sparring session Michiru punches Shirou so hard he sees stars. 

  
  


Michiru runs her fingers over the Breach schematics, idly spins the model, watches that nuclear bomb fall down the throat again and again and again. 

Later, she asks him if he thinks it’ll work and he looks out the window to the bay and doesn’t answer. 

The rain hammers loud and discordant on _Spirit Wolf_ as they wade out, past the silt of the coast and past the miracle mile, and Shirou bites his lip until he tastes copper and salt and pretends not to notice that Michiru is shaking. 

The Kaiju rise, like something out of a Biblical tale or the end of the world, twisted dark heads seeming to scrape the sky and the sliver of moon hanging ragged above the bay. 

One of them roars, throaty and rageful and so wide that Shirou can see the glowing blue inside of its throat and he closes his eyes, feels Michiru’s presence, as steady as a flame, and they open their eyes as one. 

Shirou sees the portal, pulsing like it’s alive, glimpses another world through it, alien and bioluminescent, and he’s hammering the release button with all the strength left in his body, but something’s wrong- something- 

He looks out past the portal into the swirling grey sea. 

The kaiju they’re riding roars and smashes its head upwards into the CONN-pod and the reinforced glass fritzes and cracks. 

Michiru knows what he’s about to do before he does it, claws and spits and sobs, in the end, but Shirou shoves her into the escape pod before she really knows what’s happening and he watches her shoot up to safety through the blackness. 

Shirou’s falling through the portal and it’s beautiful, all bright blues and greens and golds and strange, alien lifeforms, and the last thing he sees before he activates the nuclear core detonation is one of the strange creatures turning to look at him, and he swears its eyes widen in fear. 

  
  


Two minutes until the core blows. It’ll take at least a minute for him to activate the escape pod. 

It’ll take a miracle. 

Shirou splutters awake to the taste of salt in his mouth and the scream of seagulls and Michiru’s face, pale and red-eyed, above him, and as she drags him up from the pod into a hug he doesn’t push her away. 


End file.
